Out of the Labyrinth - And into a new one
by saroshmanzar
Summary: Spoilers. Written from Alaska's perspective. Alaska recalls from an indefinite space what happened to her the night she died and what followed afterwards. -If you want me to continue this story, let me know.
1. Out Of The Labyrinth

**Out of the labyrinth—And into a new one. **

I am going to tell you about two things today, 1) The last minutes I spent as a person, and 2) The first days I spent being dead.

I am sure you know about how I died and where I was going and why and everything, so I am not going to bore you with that. I am going to bore you with something else entirely. As I hit that unfortunate cop car that morning, my car's steering wheel split my chest in two and in the millisecond before it hit and I died, I thought about two things. It is funny how much you can think in a millisecond, and how much you wish in that moment that you had more time. The first thing I thought about was my mother. I thought about how I had failed her, and how not a day went by since her dying, and not a day goes by even now, when I don't think about what I did, and I don't feel the inescapable, LITERALLY INESCAPABLE EVEN DUE TO DEADNESS, guilt of doing what I did. The second thought was a little surprising to me. The second thought was of Miles Halter, my bony crooked neighbor. I did not realize how much I cared about him until then, and in realizing how much I cared, I also realized that I _loved_ him. And I thought _if I survive this I'm going to dump Jake and kiss Pudge and we will be happy and everything, _but, as we all know, I did not survive. I wished I would have realized this earlier, I wished I could have told him, I wished he knew I was thinking of him when I died, and I wished I had more time. But alas, my time in the labyrinth was over, and I suspected that his was just beginning. My labyrinth began when I let my mother died; I guess his began when he let me die.

The steering wheel crashes into my chest and I feel my lungs collapsing, I gasp for a breath but I cannot breath. I don't know how long it took for my heart to stop, but it certainly felt like an eternity. An eternity of blinding, literally blinding, pain as everything went black. A breath that would never come, a heart that would never beat. I did not scream, I just thought my last thoughts, I thought of what I left behind, a drunken kiss, a hopeless legacy, hurt, anger and pain. And in that moment, I think I did deserve to die.

Next up was white. Everything was white as I opened my eyes again, and I did not know where I was or the time of day or how much time had elapsed since my accident. I looked around in despair and I couldn't make out where the room began and where it ended. I looked down at my chest and it was perfectly fine. There was no scar, no trace of the accident. I thought I dreamt that accident, but then what was this? Was this some dumb prank Pudge and the Colonel were playing? I did not even dare to think that I had crossed over, that I was actually, literally, in the Promised Land. I am not going to lie and tell you that I heard God in that moment, nor have I heard him since then. It was just white. I began running towards the direction I was facing, and I realized that this place had no edge, no edge like the universe. Suddenly, I tripped and fell over, and as I closed and opened my eyes again, I was in another, scarier, room.

Scarier how? Well, for starters, this one had people. All of them were about my age, maybe some were older, some younger. Most of them were in a state of perpetual confusion, others were relaxed. Some were walking, some were sitting on chairs, chattering, laughing, crying, whatever. I got up and explored this space. It was not all white like the previous one, this one was more earth like, like it was made for us. I walked about and asked a girl, perhaps 16 years of age, where I was. She had one of those loving smiles, which used to annoy me when I was alive, but now felt really comforting.

"Hi" she said, "You, my friend, are dead, and this is where you will spend your days until…"

"Until what?"

She shrugged, and changed the subject. "So what's your name?"

"Uh, Alaska, Alaska Young"

I waved her off, too confused to chit chat, too confused to ponder over 'until…'

Around the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a boy. He was tall, and muscular, like a taller, better looking version of The Colonel. What made me notice him was that he was unusually ecstatic for guy who had just died. He was jumping up and down like he had not done it for a long long time. There was no one with him so I decided I'd go figure out what in the damned hell he was so happy about while the rest of us were so perplexed.

"Uh, Hi, Could you, uh, tell me what the hell is going on here?"

"I have no idea!" He said, with a large, goofy smile.

"Then what the hell are you jumping about for?"

"I got my leg back! I can jump! I can jump, beautiful stranger, I have never felt so alive!"

Only then did I realize that like I did not have any scars on my chest, he had a leg he did not have when he was alive. Simultaneously, I also blushed because he called me beautiful. People always called me hot, or told me I had a nice body or a nice rack, and it really annoyed me. But this guy, He told me I was beautiful. I am sure Pudge thought the same but he seldom told me.  
"Alaska Young" I said, as I shook his hand.  
"Agustus Waters".

That is all I am going to tell you about today, If you want to hear about how I befriended, and explored the world with this Waters fellow, let me know, and I will take you along, I will show you something.


	2. Into A New One

Well, if you really want to hear about it, I guess I'll keep on blabbin'. See, this Waters guy was a little beacon of light in a field of darkness for me at the time. I don't know what it was about him or what it was about me, maybe I just needed some companionship, and I guess he did too, but I felt comfortable around him. It was almost as if we came from the same place, like some omnipotent being created us both in his mind.

Anyway then, I made the acquaintance of Augustus Waters on my first day in this abyss. I should probably tell you more about this place, but you will find out soon enough, and well enough.

"I guess we're dead, huh?" I said to him.

He shrugged, as if the thought had not occurred to him.

"Huh, I seriously never thought of that. I was thinking the doctors friken fixed my friken leg"

And just like that he went from ecstatic to morose. I felt kind of _bad_, I mean who was I to break the news to this awful nice fella? _Hey happy dude, no being happy! You're dead! Hurray! Now cry primitive being, CRY! _

"What's the last thing you remember?" I asked him, showing little to no sensitivity to the news he had just received, apparently. (Stupid Alaska you're so stupid, _stupid stupid stupid)_

"Well, I guess the last thing I remember is staring at the vacant ceiling of the ICU, and well, after that it was just perpetual darkness"

"You're lucky" I said. "Last thing I remember is a steering wheel literally obliterating my chest and a force of a thousand burning suns crushing every bone in the area"

He proceeded to glance at my chest then, _the nerve._

"Well your chest is certainly looking _fine_ now" He said, managing half a smirk.

I gave him a shove on the ribcage, but I couldn't help but smile. Goddammit, he was just so _dreamy, _even in his melancholy self_._

We chit chatted like that for a while. We talked about our lives, or at least the ones we had once lived. I told him about Pudge and The Colonel and Jake and Culver Creek and all that. I did not tell him about my mother though; I don't need more people knowing about what a fuckup I am. He told me about his leg, and how he lost it.

"Osteosarcoma" he said with that half a smirk. "I was told I had an eighty percent chance of a cure, and so they cut off my leg and I was, really, cancer-free for about a year or so I guess. Which was just utter bullshit because just one day, I started feeling a little pain in my hip and so I went to the hospital _just in case _and I found out that I was LITERALLY made out of cancer". He paused for what I gathered to be to stop himself from crying. He continued.

"And it was okay, really. Because I understand that one day we all must die, but dammit what I wouldn't give to have just a little more time with my Hazel."

"Yeah, I know what you mean, I guess. Um, who's Hazel?"

"Hazel Grace, she is, um, was my girlfriend. It's funny really, I mean, the irony of it. When we first met, it was made out to be that I was the healthy one, and she was the sick one. She also had cancer btw, I think I forgot to mention that, Thyroid, with mets in the lungs." God, cancer is such a bitch. "But then as time went on, I suddenly got sicker and then, eventually I guess, was forced to leave her alone in that world. She is still sick by the way, but she's stronger than I am, she's stronger than anybody I've ever met, and of course I hope I get to meet her here."

"Well, we all live in labyrinths of suffering. I said this to Pudge once, and I say it to you: _There is always suffering._ There is, obviously, suffering when you have cancer. But it's not that simple is it? There is suffering when you love when you know you are not qualified to love. There is suffering when you are shocked into paralysis. It is there when you never get to say _I love you _to the person you love and it's there when you actually realize that literally in the last second of your life, and you carry that suffering into your goddamn grave. And not only that, no sir, there is suffering even after you're dead, as we've just found out."

I started sobbing like a lunatic after saying that, so I don't really remember what he said to me, or what he did, because I tend to block out the outside world when I get like that.

When I stopped crying, I noticed that he had his arms around me, and was whispering _okay? Okay. _I don't think he was saying it me, it seemed as if he was saying it to himself, or maybe to that Hazel girl I'm pretty sure.

And then, something _amazing_ happened. In all that talking, and the remembering, and the nostalgia, we got transported. Like my initial transition from that edgeless white room to here. It was as if someone _heard _my nostalgia and thought I needed closure. We got transported to this waffle house, which is near Culver Creek.

So we got there, suddenly the lights started flickering. Like we were actual, real ghosts, and I guess that we _were._ This girl I sort of knew, Holly Moser was there, this maybe-maybe not weekday warrior who painted nude portraits of herself. She got scared when the lights started flickering and then left in a hurry. It was funny because all the lights went out except for the one in her booth. That scared the pants off her.

Augustus Waters and I followed her out, and as my luck would have it, she actually went to Pudge's and The Colonel's room! She told them about how maybe I was trying to talk to her in Morse code. _What a bitch. As if I'd talk to her instead of my actual friends, she was there purely by chance. _And when she left their room, as if taking the thought from my head, the colonel said "As if Alaska would talk to Holly Moser…"

When I heard that, tears rolled down from my eyes. How well the colonel knew me. How well I knew them. And how much I loved them and how much I was sorry and how much I hoped they forgave me for being such a bitch and leaving them alone. And _no, no, _this cannot be happening, I have to talk to them, I have to let them know that I'm sorry, that I'm not just darkness, that I _am _somewhere and that somewhere is right there with _them. _

All of which, of course, I never got to say, and I guess I never will, what with being dead and all.


End file.
